Terry Heaton: A blogging pioneer calls it quits. And so extortion has won a victory, and the blogosphere has lost a pioneering voice. Peggy is brusk and competitive and has made her share of enemies, but nobody deserves the kind of personal attacks this site apparently distributed.
Were the attacks libelous? Or merely insulting? I can’t say, because I haven’t seen what prompted this action.
No one can defend the slimy trolls who take such pleasure in polluting cyberspace. But we can resolve to ignore them unless they cross the line into outright libel. A thick skin goes with this territory.
And we can all decide that anonymous postings — especially of this poisonous kind — deserve absolutely no credence. We must assume the people who are too cowardly to stand behind their words in such circumstances are outright liars. The burden of proof is entirely on them; when they snipe from the bushes, they have less than no credibility.